Slew of potential students a challenge for budget at Upper Cape Tech

Last year, the Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical School sent 220 acceptance letters to eighth-graders, following its proven formula for assembling a freshman class of 180.

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By C. Ryan Barber

capecodtimes.com

By C. Ryan Barber

Posted Mar. 14, 2014 at 2:00 AM

By C. Ryan Barber

Posted Mar. 14, 2014 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

BOURNE — Last year, the Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical School sent 220 acceptance letters to eighth-graders, following its proven formula for assembling a freshman class of 180.

But after 196 rising freshmen accepted offers and started in September, the technical school is scaling back its first round of admissions for next year to avoid overloading another freshman class.

Today, in the first round of admissions for the 2014-15 school year, Upper Cape Tech will mail only 120 acceptance letters to students in Marion, Wareham, Bourne, Sandwich and Falmouth. Another 70 letters will be sent on a rolling basis as the Sandwich Road school continues reviewing applications this month, bringing the initial wave of acceptances to 190.

Superintendent Bob Dutch said last year's unanticipated surge in enrollment — much of it from the technical school's hometown of Bourne — forced the school to tread carefully this year.

"We won't accept as many in the first round, just out of concern to make sure we don't end up with more students than we can fit into the building," Dutch said. "I don't have the capacity to hire more teachers. I'm locked into the dollars that I have. While we want to and try to offer technical education to as many students as we practically can, we have to play it pretty tight to the budget."

The technical school's conservative tack comes in yet another year of growing interest from eighth-graders.

Out of a possible 964 eighth-graders in the five towns' middle schools, 309 — or 32 percent — had applied to the tech school as of earlier this week.

About 30 percent of middle school eighth-graders applied last year, according to data provided by Upper Cape Tech.

So far, Upper Cape Tech has also received 22 applications from students who are home-schooled or attending private school — seven more than the 15 who applied a year ago.

At a school already starved for space, with about 700 students packed into a building designed for 500, the uptick in enrollments has been followed predictably by larger class sizes.

Dutch said the school aims to limit classes to 24 students. But some have risen to 28, with one even reaching 31, he said.

To help the student-to-teacher ratio, Dutch has drawn from Cape Cod's "qualified pool" of retired teachers and professors to have aides alongside teachers in the most crowded classrooms.

"We're fortunate on the Cape to have a lot of retired teachers and professors who would like to come back to be aides," he said. "It really helps with managing the class size."

Last year's enrollment surge came largely from Bourne, where 72 out of 188, or 38 percent, of incoming freshmen chose the technical school over Bourne High School.

With $12,000 in funding on the line with every student, that forced the Bourne district to cut three full-time and two part-time teachers after already eliminating two positions. (All but a part-time French teacher and full-time science teacher were ultimately rehired to fill positions vacated by retirements or other departures, said Bourne Superintendent Steven Lamarche.)

This year, Lamarche said he is monitoring eighth-graders' decisions "very closely."

"It's great that people have choice. But we have to continue to look at Bourne High School to see what we can do to improve," Lamarche said.

Last fall, Lamarche raised eyebrows by ending the middle school's tradition of having Upper Cape Tech counselors meet with eighth-graders — a decision he said was made to preserve class time. Dutch criticized the move as "offensive" and said it would deny students the "right to know about their choices."

The change seemed to have little effect on student interest: 83 out of 190 applied from Bourne so far this year compared with 81 out of 181 in 2013.